Davos 2019: The man who thinks he can make us love kale

Matt Barnard’s favorite reminiscence of the latest Christmas vacation interval was receiving a thanks letter from the 10-year-old daughter of a good friend who’d been over for a meal. “I’m stunned you got me to like kale. I never knew I could like salad,” she wrote.

The merchandise had come instantly from Mr Barnard’s South San Francisco farm.

It’s a pleasant anecdote. Of course, meals you have grown your self tends to be more energizing and style nicer than the identical stuff from the grocery store.

But Mr Barnard’s ambitions are rather a lot larger than offering associates and their youngsters with good lunches. He is the chief government of Plenty, a high-tech, agricultural start-up that he co-founded six years in the past.

He might solely have two farms at present, with a 3rd because of open later this yr, however they’re take a look at pads for a way more bold international enlargement plan. “Plant science artificial intelligence training centres” is how he describes them.

Pole planting

The crops are grown upwards on vertical poles, enabling them to supply greater yields on a lot smaller areas of floor, and the farms are indoors, which means the climate has no impression. LED lights present the equal of sunshine.

The vegetation do not even want soil, as an alternative they’re fed by nutrient-rich water and there is not any want for pesticides as a result of there are not any pests on this fastidiously managed setting.

For Mr Barnard, farming is a return to the household enterprise. He grew up on an orchard however says he by no means anticipated to work within the trade as a result of he “didn’t enjoy growing up without any control over my livelihood”.

The quantity of water, ratio of minerals, humidity ranges and differing kinds and durations of LED gentle are all being diverse and examined.

“By giving plants different versions of perfect environments, we have the ability to influence the way they taste,” he says.

‘Bowling balls’

The farms’ small dimension means they can even be near, and even inside, massive cities, dramatically decreasing the space produce must journey earlier than it’s eaten.

He believes that contemporary produce “gets a bad rap” as a result of most fruit and veg crops are chosen for his or her sturdiness, somewhat than their flavour.

“Look at the iceberg lettuce. It’s got no flavour and no nutrition, but it’s the largest cash crop in the US because it’s like a bowling ball making it resilient in the field and truck. That’s what the supply chain dictates,” he says.

Local farms like his are in a position to develop extra delicate and diverse sorts of produce as a result of they do not have to be as strong.

“Working to produce food for people not trucks,” is how Mr Barnard places it.

High vitality

He is optimistic that individuals will robotically select to eat extra veg if it tastes higher.

Such farms is also a part of the answer to weight problems and to feeding a rising international inhabitants after we’re operating out of house to develop crops economically, he believes.

As futuristic because it sounds, this type of farming is not new. There are related corporations elsewhere corresponding to Jones Food Company in North Lincolnshire, Intelligent Growth Solutions in Scotland and the Growing Underground enterprise in London. Internationally there are rivals corresponding to Aerofarms within the US.

Plenty of such farms have additionally failed, with critics saying the excessive price of the vitality required to run them stops them being commercially viable.

Mr Barnard says it is an trade that’s straightforward to enter with off-the-shelf methods, however argues that Plenty’s use of machine studying and knowledge is what makes it totally different.

He says exterior modifications, together with a pointy drop in the price of LED lighting, has additionally helped make it viable, with the farms extra reliant on gentle than warmth.

Reconnecting

It’s straightforward to be sceptical, however he’s been backed by some severe traders, elevating $200m (£154m) from some massive names, together with Japanese media big SoftBank, Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in 2017.

Prof Tim Benton, an professional in meals methods from the University of Leeds, agrees there’s a position for corporations like Plenty, however says they’re unlikely to switch standard horticulture.

“On average, if you divide global agricultural land by the number of people on the planet, each person uses a football pitch of land to crop the food we eat. Even if vertical farming stacks space high, it would be difficult to replicate even a big chunk of this space within cities. So, whilst part of the solution, it is not THE solution,” he says.

But like Mr Barnard, Prof Benton agrees vertical farming is one technique to reconnect folks with meals, “converting it from a commodity that is plastic wrapped, cheap and ‘waste-able’, into something real, something local, something nurtured during production”.

Plenty’s farms at present develop leafy inexperienced vegetation together with kale, candy lettuces and salad leaves, which require much less vitality in comparison with extra substantial crops corresponding to potatoes.

The crops are distributed by way of on-line retailers, at particular occasions and given to a small variety of shoppers to trial.

Shelf life

Mr Barnard says Plenty solely sells its produce when it can achieve this at “median organic pricing or better”.